Impossible to get rid of Algae

[land shark]

I've tried everything. I used peroxide, it came back. Killed the lights for over a week, it came back. I got Margarita snails, nerite snails, and cerith snails, they won't touch it. My tank won't register any phophate, nor will my well water before it's even filtered(added salt to it). I have to use my copepod culture water to even get a result on the stupid salifert test and that's with double the reagent. I don't have nitrate. I haven't fed my tank for months. I tried water changes every day. I tried leaving it alone. I'm running gfo in the stock filter. I clean my sand and my rocks every water change. I'm in the process of raising my mg but there is no effect yet.

 

I have a 3g picotope with 4white 3 blue leds. The tanks over a year old. I have brown turf like stuff(very short), cotton candy hair(short), and some kind of gha(main problem) that may be bryopsis(looks like it sometimes).

 

Worst part is every theory on algae always says it's not one thing its the other thing. In the end you always see tons of tanks that totally contradict all theories. At this point I feel like others are just lucky they don't have this stuff

 

I've lost like $100 in corals to this stuff!!!

 

[brandon429]

Thank you for posting

 

Glad you are peroxide familiar that method was 1.0 we needed a firmware upgrade and did secure one

 

 

2.0 works I'm certain.

 

If you'll bother one more time I'll link your challenge to big ole threads

 

To save retype, I put effort here. The pre rasp and test rock is all you need, do nothing to the whole tank until a model complies and take pics if poss~

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/373326-beating-bryopsis-started-techm-signs-of-distress/page-4

That thread can cure your tank. I wouldn't revert to full tank water dosing with your seated kind, just move about the tank applying what your test rock and rasp proved. It's not that water dosing is bad, it's that if you don't have a requirement for it then use all rasping and be done with this by Monday, that's why rasp is ideal and not required. I simply push for the best after pics where I don't have to wait as long for the full turnaround example final shot lol

 

 

The most important thing you can do is use 35%

 

Not 3%

 

I'm positive this is fixable off pics those macro shots are best holdfast invader pics seen in long time that's what the rasp method directly, literally addresses. I wish I knew the rasp technique in 2011

 

Dentists gave me the idea. They would scrape the plaque off my teeth without hesitation, by force, because it wasn't coming off with kid brushing it took digging to work that which is attached as a benthic anchor. I told him "I rinse plaque with listerine" and he just laughed and put on the Steve Martin breathing mask from little shop of horrors and rasped the hound out of me. I use that fear now to cure reef tanks.

[smeagol108]

What Brandon says will definitely work, I too had crappy rooted macros just like this. Was very bothered. Tried a ton and nothing worked. I was still too lazy to go the full route suggested so in a last ditch effort I did the following things all in the same time period and it went away and has not come back now 8 months later still.

1. Blue tuxedo urchin

2. In my tank I got two emeralds (my tank is only fifteen gallons)

3. Santa Monica hog .5 algae scrubber.

 

Ina matter of three weeks I had none visible in the display anymore which I attribute to the urchin and the crabs. I than gave the urchin away to a friend and the scrubber finally started growing good after about five weeks. Scrubber gets nasty stuff in it, hairy, long strands, short stuff, but I have never seen it pop up in my display again.

 

I may not have eradicated it and I guess there's always a chance it could come back if I stopped scrubbing or removed emeralds but so far I have not done either of these two. I love my algae scrubber. Overpriced for the junk it's made out of, but it works.

 

My method may not work for you but thought it worth mentioning, but Brandon's definitely will.

[ajmckay]

It's a 3g pico... If I were you I would simply re-start. The small amount of $ it would cost to get a few new rocks and some sand is worth it (esp. if you get some dry base rock). Then just re-frag your corals onto clean rocks/plugs. Prevent the introduction of future nuisance algae by thoroughly quarantining any new additions and removing anything that might grow in your tank.

 

 

What are all your inhabitants? If you're not feeding the algae has to be utilizing some nutrients in the tank.

 

It would stand to reason that if you were to suck out enough detritus that the algae would starve itself out over time.

[land shark]

I thought about an urchin but Im pretty sure it would bulldoze the crap out of my 3g and probably die fast. Thought about a sea hare too but some say they wont go after this kind of stuff. Plus the snails I got were supposed to eat this stuff and they didn't. I don't want a crab to eat my goby either.

 

I don't know about going at my rocks and frag plugs with a file

There are many places the algae is that are hard to get to without causing a lot of damage. I feel like my rocks would look bad after that too.

 

I'm still very put off from using peroxide. It always bleaches whatever it touches. I even lost some zoas to it.

 

I do have some decorative algae like string of pears and purple fauchea that grow slow and are easy to control. I can always save some frags of them though.

 

You are talking about the hair algae like stuff when you say macro right? I guess it is more macro than micro. I can definitely test it on a smaller rock covered with the stuff and take before and after pics. I just don't know how well I can apply the same method to my whole tank.

 

As for the mg dosing, I'm not. I'm actually adding more to my salt for water changes. I have done a ton of reading on this method. From what has been said it is epsom salt that is what kills bry. Supposedly tech m is at least half Epsom. Some say its the sulfur that does the trick. You see, I am using esv salt for my tank. It uses individual ingredients to make the salt mixture. to get mag it has epsom. I doubled the amount on the chart. I have 5gals of saltwater to use on my next water changes. I have already done a 50% change on the tank with no effects on anything. I don't know if this will work or if I have bryopsis or something else. Thats why I posted here. I also don't know why reef calculators differ so much from the chart provided by esv. Im going to ask Bob Stark.

[land shark]

It's a 3g pico... If I were you I would simply re-start. The small amount of $ it would cost to get a few new rocks and some sand is worth it (esp. if you get some dry base rock). Then just re-frag your corals onto clean rocks/plugs. Prevent the introduction of future nuisance algae by thoroughly quarantining any new additions and removing anything that might grow in your tank.

 

 

What are all your inhabitants? If you're not feeding the algae has to be utilizing some nutrients in the tank.

 

It would stand to reason that if you were to suck out enough detritus that the algae would starve itself out over time.

I do have a Flaming prawn goby. It just eats pods in the tank. I use to add pods when I had two but one seems to be fat from the natural production. I have felt like giving the system a bumb in pods but havent cause the algae. I dont know why this algae won't starve many say it can survive at very low nutrients.

 

I did and am considering starting over and doing a fake epoxy/pond foam scape. Like to see algae grow on that. Just haven't felt like messing with it. Also pretty much all of my coral is frags, cant really re frag them and I don't want to kill them with dips so the algae on them will live on. Might work to wait til there plugs are covered by the coral.

[IronChefItaly]

You will not have algae growth if there are low levels of phosphate and nitrate - try a hanna, salifert or red sea test. Additionally, algae itself is not harmful to coral unless it is competing for surface area - algae actually improves water quality. Excess nutrients are getting into your water somehow - overfeeding, high bioload, poor water / no rodi, saturated liverock. I'd strongly recommend the addition of some smaller hermit crabs - mine will swarm any newly added coral and pick algae off it for a day until its visibly clean. Last note, it has nothing to do with the introduction of the algae. You can't just eradicate it through manual removal or chemical "cleaners" you'll have to fix the problem at the source and doing so can take months.

[smeagol108]

And emerald or small hermits won't kill ur goby. If u goby is healthy he will move out of the way and will all that algae hermits or emeralds will have plenty to eat. Blue tuxedos are pretty small and u don't have to keep it. They are only twenty bucks or so. Just use it temporarily and than rehome it, or start over, or do scrubbing and peroxide at 35 percent.

[land shark]

You will not have algae growth if there are low levels of phosphate and nitrate - try a hanna, salifert or red sea test. Additionally, algae itself is not harmful to coral unless it is competing for surface area - algae actually improves water quality. Excess nutrients are getting into your water somehow - overfeeding, high bioload, poor water / no rodi, saturated liverock. I'd strongly recommend the addition of some smaller hermit crabs - mine will swarm any newly added coral and pick algae off it for a day until its visibly clean. Last note, it has nothing to do with the introduction of the algae. You can't just eradicate it through manual removal or chemical "cleaners" you'll have to fix the problem at the source and doing so can take months.

I did use salifert, it is clear with double the reagents. The plastic container they provided had a bluer tint than the test water All the coral I have lost died after the algae covered it not before. This stuff almost seems to consume the corals. Takes root and sucks the life out of em. It grows on everything, its not competing its taking over. I like macros just not the ones that snuff out my corals. I've seen plenty of low nutrient cases with algae and high nutrient cases with not a speck of the stuff.

 

 

And emerald or small hermits won't kill ur goby. If u goby is healthy he will move out of the way and will all that algae hermits or emeralds will have plenty to eat. Blue tuxedos are pretty small and u don't have to keep it. They are only twenty bucks or so. Just use it temporarily and than rehome it, or start over, or do scrubbing and peroxide at 35 percent.

Crabs do catch small fish. I've seen it in person. Not a sick fish a very healthy one. My fish is a half inch in size... on the other hand my fish is extremely fast. Anyway I'm leaning towards a sea hare if anything. If not the hair than probably a tux. I just know every snail I got that was supposed to eat this stuff didnt.

 

I hit a couple of frags with %3 on the areas with algae and glued over the algae. Even %3 hurts my coral badly. I can't imagine what %35 will do.Corals are retracted but I'm hoping this will allow them to grow where the algae was preventing them. I'm thinking if the mag increase doesn't work I'll just start over. Plan B is waiting till the plugs are all covered and peroxiding any remaining algae. I'll try some rasping too and post pics.

 

 

 

[JoanHelton]

Thanks for sharing this information.

[tdannhauser30]

Algae scrubber! I know it sounds crazy but literally put a scrubber with a good grow light in the back of my nanocube and did normal waterchanges with manual algae removal and presto I have an algae free tank! Granted now one of the chambers of my nanocube is full of algae but hey at least it isn't the display! Now I have a ton of algae in the back but still none in the front because it gets outcompeted. My tank looked wayyyyyyy worse than yours too.. 28 gal of Green hair algae forest lol. Good luck to you and I also like the idea of just starting over with such a small tank if you cant find a way to incorporate a scrubber in such a small tank. ( made my scrubber myself btw, super cheap!!!)

[ajmckay]

So an algae scrubber is definitely a possible solution. Algae scrubbers and properly set up refugiums can be extremely effective.

 

BUT - it's not as simple as put a red light in and wait. Maintaining a scrubber/refugium is an additional task above maintaining the reef. Also, you need to give the algae scrubber a chance to gain traction. The scrubber won't establish itself in a tank covered in algae, first the algae needs to be removed manually.

 

So while a scrubber is a cool idea it's also some additional work and consideration.